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“No,” I answered at the same time Brenna said, “Yes.”
* * *
The four of us moved to a private table that was mostly blocked off from the rest of the restaurant with sheer black curtains. Nicoli sat at the head of the table. I sat to his left, Brenna sat to his right, and Dario sat on the other side of Brenna.
Brenna ordered me food even though I had no intention of eating.
“Did something happen?” Nicoli had asked only once. I hadn’t answered. Instead, I’d downed another whiskey.
When our food came, Brenna, who’d ordered the same exact thing as Dario, switched her plate with his, then switched Dario’s original plate with mine. The three of us watched her silently and when she was done, she made no move to touch the food she’d taken from me.
Nicoli picked up his fork, stabbed a bite of food from the plate in front of her, and ate it. “It’s not poisoned,” he said after he swallowed.
Dario huffed a laugh as he started eating from the plate Brenna had switched to him. Brenna picked up her fork and began eating. When I didn’t and just kept drinking, she shot me a worried glance. Nicoli noticed.
“You don’t get to count this as the dinner you owe me if you don’t eat,” he said to me.
I twisted my glass on the table in a circle. “To make it up to you, I’ll give you two dinners. One can even be at my house.”
I felt Brenna’s gaze as I stared at Nicoli. His brows rose. “Dinner at the Quinns’. How would Stefan feel about me coming to your home?”
I didn’t react. I didn’t so much as blink. “I’m sure he won’t care.”
Ivano, Nicoli’s little brother, and a few men of the De Luca family showed up midway through the meal. Ivano looked surprised but delighted to see me and sat in the chair next to mine. “Having dinner with The Castrator and you didn’t invite me, brother?” he said to Nicoli as he and his friends sat.
“It was a spontaneous thing,” Nicoli said before taking a bite.
Ivano noticed Brenna and recognition lifted his brows. “You must be Brenna.”
Brenna nodded as she chewed.
Ivano grinned mischievously. “I heard you’ve been keeping Dario on his toes.”
Dario glared at Ivano.
That just made Ivano’s grin brighten. “Nicoli said you knocked Dario on his ass.”
“There’s no way Dario got taken down by this girl,” one of the two men who’d showed up with Ivano said in Italian.
“Maybe he got distracted checking her out,” the other added in Italian, making them both chuckle.
Dario’s glare turned murderous as he looked at the two of them and they immediately shut up.
“Such a scary face,” Brenna teased as she twirled spaghetti on her fork.
His glare lessened just a smidge as his attention shifted to her. She took in the harsh look and smiled before taking a bite.
The waiter came. Ivano and his buddies ordered drinks and food.
“So what brings you to our territory?” Ivano asked.
Brenna looked to me to answer, but as she did, something caught her eye through the black sheer curtains behind me. I watched as her eyes followed whatever she saw. “Maura,” she said, warning me of what I already knew was coming. Or rather, who was coming.
The restaurant went quiet and the men at the table noticed.
Jamie and Louie were the first to come into view, then Rourke and Conor, followed by Dean, Asher, and many enforcers. Nicoli’s goons stopped Jamie and Louie before they could get close to our table. Jamie and Louie didn’t try to push through them. They just stood there staring at me.
I downed the rest of what was in my glass and looked to Nicoli. He was taking in the entourage that had come to retrieve me. “I came to get drunk and to see I could truly trust Nicky,” I finally answered Ivano’s question.
